Billionaire gives $168m to combat malaria

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced three grants totaling $168 million to fight malaria – a disease that, due to increased drug resistance, is on the rise in Africa for the first time in 20 years, killing more than one million people annually. The grants will accelerate research on new malaria prevention strategies for children, new drugs to fight drug-resistant malaria, and malaria vaccines.

Bill and Melinda Gates made the grant announcement – one of the largest in the foundation’s history – after meeting with doctors and patients at a malaria treatment and research center in Manhiça, a region heavily affected by malaria. They were joined by Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi and Deputy Health Minister Aida Libombo.

“It’s time to treat Africa’s malaria epidemic like the crisis it is,” Mr. Gates said. “It is unacceptable that 3,000 African children die every day from a largely preventable and treatable disease.”

“Malaria is robbing Africa of its people and its potential,” said Gates. “Beyond the extraordinary human toll, malaria is one of the greatest barriers to Africa’s economic growth, draining national health budgets and deepening poverty.”

Mr. Gates called for a renewed global fight against malaria, a disease that infects 300 to 500 million people and kills more than one million people every year – 90 percent of them in Africa, the vast majority of them children. The disease costs the continent an estimated $12 billion in lost GDP every year, and consumes 40 percent of all public health spending.

Malaria’s resurgence in Africa is fueled by an increase in resistance to available drugs. Experts estimate that up to 80 percent of malaria in some parts of Africa is resistant to chloroquine, the cheapest standard drug. Other, very effective drugs exist, but their cost puts them out of reach of most Africans.

(gmcg)